Invited by Professor Jinhua Sun, Professor Elaine S. Oran, a prominent scientist of international renown in reactive flow physics from U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, visited our State Key Laboratory of Fire Science as academic exchange for days. On May 22nd, 2012, she made a subject report titled “Turbulence and Stochasticity in High-Speed Reactive Flows” which presented a detailed discussion about the combustion limits for large systems, flame acceleration and deflagration to detonation transition (DDT). Moreover, this report gave us a general insight into a fundamental astrophysical problem: mechanism of DDT in a Type la supernova (SNla). In the Q&A section, some further communications about those concerned topics were carried on. During her visit, Professor Oran also held some academic seminars with relevant research groups in our laboratory and we had an in-depth discussion about international science and technology cooperation on “The fundamental research of reactive flow under extreme conditions”.

Professor Oran received a BA in Physics and Chemistry from Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, and a PhD from the Department of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Yale. She began her career at the Naval Research Laboratory in 1972 as a Presidential Intern and was the head of the Center for Reactive Flow and Dynamical System during 1986 and 1988. Currently, she is a Senior Scientist at the NRL for Computational Physics and Fluid Dynamics, and also an Adjunct Professor of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Michigan.

Professor Oran has published hundreds of papers on those distinguished international journals including PRL, JFM, C&F, AIAA, et al. She is also the coauthor of the book Numerical Simulation of Reactive Flow (2nd edition, Cambridge Press, 2001). Her recent research interests include computational fluid dynamics, computational combustion, rarified gas flow, fluid and particle dynamics, and astrophysics.

Besides, Professor Oran is the fellow of AIAA, the member of National Academy Engineering (NAE) and American Physical Society (APS). She was the Editor-in- Chief or Associate Editor for many top journals such as AIAA Journal, Journal of Computational Physics, Combustion and Flame and Journal of Shock Waves.

She has received a number of awards, including the Arthur S. Fleming Award, the Oppenheim Prize of the Institute of Dynamics of Energetic and Reactive Systems, the Zeldovich Gold Medal of the Combustion Institute, and the AIAA Dryden Distinguished Lectureship in Aerospace Research. She was inducted into the Hall of Fame of Women in Technology International and received the Society of Women Engineers Achievement Award. She is also a recent recipient of the US President Rank Award for her exceptional long-term accomplishments.